That’s the vision of Kotaro Chiba, founder of the newly set-up 1 billion yen (US$16m) DroneFund in Japan. The co-founder of Japanese gaming and location services platform Colopl and a prominent investor in mobile gaming and VR applications just doesn’t know when it will happen but he believes it’s only a matter of time, investment, good technology and internet-based management systems.

Drones will be to society what the mobile phone is now – they will connect us, they will do all kinds of stuff for us, they will be everywhere and they will be invisible.

That’s the vision of Kotaro Chiba, founder of the newly set-up 1 billion yen (US$16m) DroneFund in Japan. The co-founder of Japanese gaming and location services platform Colopl and a prominent investor in mobile gaming and VR applications just doesn’t know when it will happen but he believes it’s only a matter of time, investment, good technology and internet-based management systems.

And Chiba, who will be speaking at WIT Japan & North Asia in Tokyo on June 29, is determined that Japan should not be left behind in the drone race, which is why he started the fund which is currently invested in 19 startups, representing technologies from aerial imaging to drone racing, drone patent filing, and a hover bike – with financing and a support community called “Chiba Dojo”.

“The drone industry will become like the Internet industry,” he said, and he estimates the drone market will grow by 900% by 2022, reaching $1.3 billion.

“Could you have imagined in 2000 the iPhone, Instagram, Twitter – maybe not? It’s the same with drones – we cannot imagine the future yet.”

For Chiba, who made his exit from Colopl in 2015, his love affair with drones started out as a hobby. “I bought a small toy drone three years ago and started flying everyday. I loved it, loved taking aerial photography and videos.”

He was such a frequent flyer that finally he got what is called a “super licence” from the Japanese government – this allows him to fly drones anytime, anyplace, a privilege he said is available to only 100 private citizens.

He now owns between 30 and 40 drones and spends his time teaching at Keio University about the drone industry.

Chiba is no stranger to the evolution of the Internet and how it has transformed societies and economies. His first job was at Recruit, Japan’s classified advertising giant, almost two decades ago “when we did paper magazines and then started offering Internet services around 2000”.

In 2007, he joined Colopl as a co-founder.

Colopl is regarded as one of Japan’s biggest gaming success stories. Some of the firm’s biggest hits include card game Pro Baseball Pride, RPG Treasure Detective and quiz RPG Wizard & Wiz the Black Cat, the last of which is also available in English. In 2013, following an initial IPO offering, it was valued at a market cap of $2.4b.

Chiba attributed half of its success to timing. “In 2007, the world economy was down, there were no competitors, no big players. The other half was the arrival of the smartphone, and the launch of the iPhone around the same time as the company. Before the iPhone, it was hard for game developers to reach a global market. Now using iPhone and Android, all games can be sold to a global market,” said Chiba.

However, when it comes to drone technology, he said Japan is far behind. China is now the world’s biggest drone manufacturer, controlling 70% of the market, he said. “That is too big and it’s a big concern of mine. We are behind China and the US, there are no good investors in Japan and this is one reason why I set up the DroneFund.”

Other than drones, Chiba, who is one of Japan’s most prolific investors, having personal investments in 29 funds and up to 45 startups, is betting big on Japan’s inbound tourism.

He was an early investor in niche luxury accommodation site, Relux, which was sold to Japanese mobile giant KDDI. He’s also invested in Trippiece, a social travel site. (Both companies are past winners of the WIT Startup competitions.) Another investment is in Wamazing, which provides free SIM Cards to tourists through vending machines at airports.

Two years ago, he bought The Ryokan Tokyo in Yugawara, near Hakone, and invested in renovating and designing it for foreign travellers. “Inbound tourism to Japan is very big now,” he said.

He sees a time when drone tourism will become a reality. “Drones can show you images of places you can’t access, where you can see anything from anywhere.”

Imagine the possibilities, he said. “I could park my car at the base of Diamond Head in Waikiki and fly my drone up there so that I can have live views of the mountain.”

I asked if this could lead to “lazy tourism” whereupon he said, “Yes, but imagine what it could do for elderly people who cannot make the trek up the mountain. It’d bring the mountain to them”.

Chiba believes the drone industry will be bigger than the Internet industry and estimates there’s a 20-year gap between the two. “Twenty years ago, the Internet was just beginning and now it’s become the infrastructure of the world. This is what drones will become – the future infrastructure.

“And it’s not only remote control flying machines but think of each drone as a packet of Internet connected to the main Internet. Right now, we don’t have to feel Internet to access it – it’s on 24 hours and we can connect to it anytime. But it wasn’t always like that. Before we had to have modems and costs were high, the Internet was not a general service. Now it’s part of our life.

“This is what drones will become. By 2030-2035, we will be a drone-based society.”